History

History of Science, History of Medicine is an interdisciplinary program of studies leading toward an understanding of the development of science and medicine and their impact on society. It explores intellectual and cultural traditions, institutions, techniques, and practices; the social uses of science and medicine; the creation of science-based technologies; and the relations of science, medicine, and public health to the state.

HIST141J 01 (21704) /HSHM462/THST394Science and Drama

Bettyann Kevles
W 1.30-3.20

Themes in science, technology, and medicine as they have figured in modern plays written and produced in the United States and Europe. These fictive treatments are compared with scientific and historical reality. Playwrights include Ibsen, Brecht, Capek, Frayn, Stoppard, Molière, and Cassandra Medley.

HIST 234 01 (12794) /HSHM235
Epidemics and Society in the West since 1600

Frank Snowden
MW 10.30-11.20

The impact of epidemic diseases such as bubonic plague, cholera, malaria, and AIDS on society, public health, and the medical profession in comparative and international perspective. Popular culture and mass hysteria, the mortality revolution, urban renewal and rebuilding, sanitation, the germ theory of disease, the emergence of scientific medicine, and debates over the biomedical model of disease.

AMST 135 01 (12848) /HIST127/WGSS200
U.S. Lesbian and Gay History

George Chauncey
TTh 10.30-11.20
1 HTBA

Introduction to the social, cultural, and political history of lesbians, gay men, and other socially constituted sexual minorities. Focus on understanding categories of sexuality in relation to shifting normative regimes, primarily in the twentieth century. The emergence of homosexuality and heterosexuality as categories of experience and identity; the changing relationship between homosexuality and transgenderism; the development of diverse lesbian and gay subcultures and their representation in popular culture; religion and sexual science; generational change and everyday life; AIDS; and gay, antigay, feminist, and queer movements.

A chronological inquiry into the central questions raised by the invention of nuclear weapons. Topics include the impact of nuclear weapons on the theory and practice of war, nuclear deterrence, disarmament, nuclear proliferation, preemptive war, and the capacity for human self-extinction.

Relationships between medicine, health, and the media in the United States from 1870 to the present. The changing role of the media in shaping conceptions of the body, creating new diseases, influencing health and health policy, crafting the image of the medical profession, informing expectations of medicine and constructions of citizenship, and the medicalization of American life.

The social, cultural, and political history of American medicine from 1945 to 1960. The defeat of national health insurance; racism in health care; patient activism; the role of gender in defining medical professionalism and family health; the rise of atomic medicine; McCarthyism in medicine; and the polio vaccine trials and the making of science journalism.

This research seminar introduces students to current historical debates around health activism. Topics include progressive and conservative ideologies; debates around welfare and entitlements; gender and reproductive rights; medical professionalism; and health activism as a social movement. Research is focused on holdings in Yale libraries.

A review of evidence concerning dietary habits and attitudes in the Greco-Roman world, examining the various meanings of eating and drinking in literary texts and the significance of food and drink in social and religious life and in health care.

A survey of the major historical issues raised by the Holocaust, including the roots of Nazism; different theoretical perspectives and ways of accounting for genocide; the behavior of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders; and problems of representation.

AMST930 01 (11052) /HSHM701Problems in the History of Medicine and Public Health

John Warner
M 1.30-3.20

An examination of the variety of approaches to the social, cultural, and intellectual history of medicine, focusing on the United States. Reading and discussion of the recent scholarly literature on medical cultures, public health, and illness experiences from the early national period through the present. Topics include the role of gender, class, ethnicity, race, religion, and region in the experience of health care and sickness and in the construction of medical knowledge; the interplay between lay and professional understandings of the body; the role of the marketplace in shaping professional identities and patient expectations; citizenship, nationalism, and imperialism; and the visual culture of medicine.

HIST 938 01 (21114) /HSHM676 The Engineering and Ownership of Life

Daniel Kevles
W 3.30-5.20

The seminar explores the history of intellectual innovation and intellectual property protection in living matter. Focusing on the United States in world context, it examines arrangements outside the patent system as well as within it. Topics include agriculture, medicine, biotechnology, and law. May be taken as a reading or research course.

EAST 525a/HIST 902a/HSHM 707a
Impact of Epidemic Disease in Context: Focus on Asia

William Summers
T 1.30-3.20

The course brings historical, geopolitical, medical, and public health perspectives to bear on the study of specific epidemics, with a focus on Asia. Case studies include major epidemics such as cholera in the Philippines and plague in Manchuria in the early twentieth century, the story of Japan's biological warfare Unit 731 in World War II, recurrent influenza pandemics, and more recently, Nipah virus outbreaks in Malaysia, SARS in China, and pneumonic plague in Gujarat, India.

HSHM 008 01 (12051) /HUMS090
History of Scientific Medicine

Sherwin Nuland
TTh 1.00-2.15

The development of scientific medicine traced from classical antiquity to the dawning of the modern biomedical era. Focus on the biographies of major contributors and on cultural and intellectual currents affecting discovery.

The history of psychotropic medications in America from the introduction of amphetamine in the 1930s through the rise of Prozac in the 1990s. Case studies of antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and stimulants within the broader social, psychiatric, cultural, and pharmaceutical landscape.

HIST 233 01 (21251) /HSHM201
The Cultures of Western Medicine: A Historical Introduction

Sally Romano
MW 10.30-11.20
1 HTBA

A survey of medical thought, practice, institutions, and practitioners from classical antiquity to the present. Changing concepts of health and disease in Europe and America explored in their social, cultural, economic, scientific, technological, and ethical contexts.

HIST 901 01 (11048) /HSHM708
The Body in Science and Art

Paola Bertucci
W 1.30-3.20

The course explores the history of the representations of the human body in science and art. It discusses recent literature on the role of the body in experimental practices.

HIST 933 01 (21112) /HSHM640Molecules, Life, and Disease in the Twentieth Century

William Summers
TTh 10.30-11.20

The course explores the transformation of the life sciences in the twentieth century. It focuses on the rise of molecular biology and its understanding of life and disease. It shows how and why the molecular vision on life has achieved such a high level of scientific authority and social legitimacy. It emphasizes the relationship of this transformation to broader intellectual, social, cultural, and political change.

Disease and healing in American history from colonial times to the present. The changing role of the physician, alternative healers and therapies, and the social impact of epidemics from smallpox to AIDS.